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Terror Tales II
Terror Tales II is a horror-anthology film released in 1997, and is a sequel to the 1992 film. The film was better received than the first but it wasn't a financial success. While Frank Novice helped produce the film, Lily Laney wasn't involved and was critical of the film. Plot Intro The mother (now named Stephanie) (Jennifer Jason Leigh), evades the freak show runner from the ending of the previous movie. She has lost her arm and is partially blinded in the midst of her escape from him. She takes shelter in a remote home, which owned by Mr. Thornton (Sam Anderson). He informs Stephanie that the phone line is down and that the nearest police station is miles away. Mr. Thornton tells her to wait in his home until the lines become open again and he keeps her interest up by telling her some stories. Sentinel Professor Lane hosts a seminar about a mythical creature dubbed the "Sentinel". The students are skeptical of its existence, not buying any of Lane's stories, and write him off as crazy. In a desperate bid to defend himself, Lane calls his friend Wynn to tell a story about an encounter he had with the Sentinel along with another group of students. While venturing around the mountainside, one of the students discovers a hidden labyrinth, and within it is a mummified creature. Against Wynn's demands to leave it behind, the students take it along with the intent of sending it to a museum. They're forced to keep it with them for the night due to the museum being closed and have it stored in a toolshed. Two students go to have sex in the toolshed, where the mummified creature emerges from its casing and attacks the two, later finding and killing the wife of the town sheriff. Wynn and the remaining students band together to hunt down the creature. The sheriff is sent to find the creature and gets his leg broken. The creature finds and kills the remaining students before fleeing into the woods, while Wynn pursues it. Back in class, Wynn warns the students to never pursue the sentinel, as it rejects humanity and refuses to adjust to their standards. When questioned on how Wynn recalls the event in such clear detail, it's revealed that Wynn is the sentinel and he goes after the students. Lane shoots Wynn and successfully kills him, and we learn that Lane was the sheriff from the flashback. He wanted to find and kill the Sentinel as retribution for what it did to him and his wife. Cast * Steve Railsback: Lane * Richard Romanus: Wynn Notes * Completed in 1992. * Interior scenes shot at the University of Arizona. * Exterior shots were filmed in the Santa Catalina Mountains. * Additional filming took place in Safford, Arizona. Static Marc Anderson is a bitter TV critic who's shows live or die by his reviews. He is vehemently against adaptations of older works or remakes of older shows, with which he holds a remake of a childhood show, The Beyond, to a very negative degree and he rants about the show on a constant basis, to the annoyance of his friends, his wife and his boss. Marc visits a video store, where a clerk points him to a tape containing an unreleased episode of The Beyond, which he immediately buys. After angering his wife, Charlene, by forcibly commandeering the TV, he puts the tape in and sees a black and white rendition of his kitchen. Marc calls his wife in to show her but all she sees is static. Marc keeps watching and sees a man enter the kitchen. He goes into the fridge and pulls out a slice of pie, which he takes a bite into before putting it back. Charlene discovers that a pie she was saving has been bitten into and Marc is blamed. He looks outside for the man on the TV but has no luck. Marc continues watching the video. The man goes upstairs and approaches the bathroom, brandishing a knife. Marc runs up to stop him but scares Charlene who's taking a shower. Time passes and Marc becomes lethargic from placing all of his attention on the video. He goes to shut off the TV, but the power goes out as he hits the switch. Marc goes to look for the fusebox and happens down a long corridor that leads to his kitchen, but the kitchen is set in black and white, closely resembling the area as seen on the video. Marc goes into the living room and is shocked to find that a mural in the living room (previously displaying the man) now contains him. The room begins to distort and break down as Marc cries desperately for help. We zoom out and see that Marc is in the TV, which is shut off by the man from the TV. Cast * Jeff Daniels: Marc * Kate McGregor-Stewart: Charlene * Michael Ryan: The man * Timothy Bottoms: Phil Notes * Shot entirely indoors. Kyler Trip Sanders is a samaritan who returns to Indiana from Illinois following the death of his uncle. He's reunited with his former group of friends and they resume their niche, taking care of the neighborhood and helping its inhabitants. Trip reveals that he has previously gone to Illinois to live with his late uncle to go over memory lapses and emotional fits. He had supposedly overcome both since then. Following a day of service, Trip is blamed for the death of an elderly neighbor, supposedly pushing her down a flight of stairs and leaving her to die. Trip vehemently denies these actions, though witnesses say he was the last to visit her before the incident, and that she never left the house since. Trip receives a surprise visit from his uncle, Kyler, who reprimands him for supposedly killing the old woman and it leads to a brief physical altercation. He forces Trip to swear to not harm anyone ever again, which he immediate agrees to, still denying his involvement in the death. Trip's friends want to dissociate themselves from him due to the allegations against him, and the townspeople become hesitant to be around him. More deaths occur and more altercations between him and Kyler occur. He hermits himself and has a mental breakdown, following a one-sided argument between him and his own thoughts. He learns that Kyler isn't real and that he came about due to an undiagnosed case of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Trip allows Kyler to overtake his own personality, which he allowed due to his good deeds being overlooked by the townspeople as a means of convenience. He murders his best friend Ket and proceeds to go after people who've rebuffed him in the past. The sheriff visits him, claiming that he intends to convict Trip, but is confounded by a lack of evidence. Trip warns him to not concern himself with the case as the camera pans to a vegetable garden outside, supposedly where he hid the bodies of the slain. Cast * Jonathan Brandis: Trip * Jason James Richter: Ket * Jim Varney: Kyler Notes * Filming took place in Warsaw, Indiana, with additional filming in Quincy, Illinois. * Features Jim Varney in a rare non-comedic role. * Elliot Strange makes a cameo as a truck driver early on in the segment. * 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago could be heard in the beginning. Ending Margot hears the phone ring and upon picking it up, is shocked to find that it's the freak show runner on the other line. Mr. Thornton knocks her down and accuses her of murdering her family for poem inspiration. He reveals himself to be the poet she idolized and that the stories he told were representations of his past. The first story represented a revenge fantasy against his teachers, the second represented his father leaving him due to his obsession with television, the third was the foundation of his murder days. He also reveals himself to be the one on the other line at the end of the previous movie. The father was forced by him to deliver his family to him to sacrifice them to a killer spider for a scott-free murder, and that he killed the father's brother for failing to deliver on time. Stephanie is knocked unconscious and brought to the basement where she's ultimately sacrificed to the spider. Alternate Ending On later prints of the film, an alternative ending was filmed by Laney and Novice to rectify any continuity errors. Stephanie evades Mr. Thornton and he vows revenge. Production Strange intended to this to be the last installment in the Terror Tales series, with Stephanie getting killed at the end. The intended ending was shot and appeared during the film's theatrical debut, but was edited out on later prints without Strange's knowledge. Both Laney and Novice wound up going to LionsGate to produce two additional installments between 1999 and 2002. Strange received a legacy credit but had no involvement in either film. Strange has been openly critical of both films, accusing them of being cash grabs. The film jumped between various producers, reportedly due to Laney attempting to sabotage the production since she had no involvement in it, but all congregated in an attempt to get her to back off. Their logos are present at the start of the film, namely to account for the underwhelming running time. Reception The film earned a 51% on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating generally mixed reviews, though it has garnered a much warmer reception than the previous film. However, it was a failure at the box-office. Category:Gecko Studios films Category:Films